There was a lot of tragedy in my daddy's life. Here he is below: just 4 years old when he first appears on a federal census - April 1910 in Burnsville. His baby brother Franklin Hosea Gober is 2 years old. Little Franklin would be dead of rabies by December 17, 1910. And my grandmother had already lost an infant daughter who was born and died January 2, 1905. It is said that my grandmother doted excessively on her son Noonan. Grandma lost a beautiful baby girl Margie Isabell, 6 months old, in 1927.

On 23rd of August 1923, daddy married Minnie Lee "Mamie" Springer over in Calhoun County, Mississippi, where his father Harve Gober and his grandfather George Washington Gober operated a sawmill. On 27th of July 1924, Mamie and the infant she was pregnant with died. Daddy buried them at the family cemetery, Little Flock Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery, Burnsville.

On 12th of May 1928, daddy married Raney Lee Bell Curtis, daughter of Johnston Albert Curtis & wife Josie Albinah Smith. Daddy and mama met at Chapel Hill Methodist Church in Tishomingo County and would go "walking out." Daddy was 22; mama 15 when they wed. Grandpa Albert Curtis and his family lived out from Burnsville where he owned farmland, and Mama often helped him with the field work. Mama and daddy went to the courthouse and mama signed her daddy's name to the marriage application giving her permission to marry.

Mama always loved telling the story of how they eloped and were married by daddy's uncle Rev George Newton Gober in the parlor of his home in Iuka while his wife Rachel Leora "Ora" Floyd Gober peeled peaches. (Uncle George's wife Rachel Leora "Ora" Floyd Gober was the sister of daddy's mama Mary Emmaline "Amy" Floyd Gober.)

Mama told us she'd put her pretty blue silk dress under her work clothes and was out in the field when she heard daddy whistle. She tore off the work dress as she ran to meet him - he'd parked his car on an incline near a tree to make sure he could get the car started. As he helped her get through the barbed wire fence, she tore her blue silk dress. Years later, at my grandmother Curtis' wake, I sat by my mama when her friend from those days came to pay her respects. She and mama had a good laugh as they remembered the elopement. Her friend had been in on it and was watching from across the road. I always remember that mama's friend whose name I cannot recall, said, "And Raney, Noonan was one of the handsomest men I've ever seen." Mama blushed like a schoolgirl, ducked her head, and said, "yes he was."

In October of 1929 daddy's father Harve Gober lost everything when the banks failed. My mother told me she heard my grandpa Harve coming down the road hollering "I've lost it all! I've lost it all." And on December 24, 1929, Harve's only brother William Thomas "Bill" Gober and his daughter Era Mai were killed by a train in Red Bay Alabama.

There followed the Depression years and the start of World War II. Daddy farmed and mama helped daddy's uncle Dr. Arlander H. Montgomery with his housecalls - mama would often "lay out" deceased ones for burial; especially hard, she said, were the babies who died. She washed them and put them in whatever little outfits the mother had.

Late in 1943, Daddy took his young family (4 children at that point) and went to Pascagoula where he worked as a welder throughout the rest of the war years at Ingalls Shipyards. In 1945 daughter Margie, the fifth child, was born in Pascagoula. Then, about 1947, daddy moved his family up to the Mississippi Delta, trying to make a living and feed his young family. They lived at Phillip where they survived a flood, on a plantation out from Glendora, then at Ruleville, Drew, and then finally back to Ruleville where the family's home burned and they lost almost everything. It was a cold dreary December morning, the day after Christmas, 1951. Daddy had gotten up about 4 am to make a fire in the old wood-burning potbellied stove when sparks ignited the wooden walls and the house quickly went up in flames.

Late in 1951 Daddy went north to South Bend, Indiana to visit his sister Hazel Gober Gilchrist and her family who had settled there in 1948. He stopped in to see mama's sister Aunt Rena "Shorty" Curtis Freeman and her family in Gary, Indiana. Finally he made his way to Chicago to visit his brother-in-law R.G.Curtis who had moved to Chicago about 1950. Within a few days, he called Raney back in Mississippi and told her to bring the girls and come, he'd found a good job as a welder. Their older three children were married, and so Raney and the three younger ones boarded a bus before daylight in Sunflower, Mississippi, rode the bus to Memphis where they caught the City of New Orleans train and arrived in Chicago in a blinding snow storm. It wasn't too long after their arrival that they received word that their son Joe's home had burned in Sunflower and so even the few remaining family possessions that were stored were lost.

After a year of living in a one-room apartment on Jackson Boulevard, the family moved to 2100 N. Halsted Street in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, about 7 blocks from Lake Michigan and Lincoln Park. It was a wonderful place for their children to grow up with the park and the lake as their playground.

But Daddy was always homesick for the South. Often he would come home from work and tell Raney to get the girls ready and "let's go home." He'd drive all night to Tennessee or Mississippi -- on little two-lane highways -- visit Saturday and head back north late Sunday.

He never got a chance to retire back to his homeland, because he died on August 10, 1961, of a heart attack at his residence at 2631 North Burling Street. Dr Harry Siegel, the family doctor, still made house calls, and he pronounced him dead. A wake was held in Chicago for the relatives there and in Indiana.

Then, Daddy's remains were loaded on a train for the trip back south. His son Joe road in the baggage train with his father's casket to Memphis and then to Corinth, Mississippi, where Shackelford Funeral Home's hearse from Savannah, Tennessee met the train, and the family followed the hearse, taking a ferry across the Tennesee River to the funeral home in Savannah, Tennessee. His funeral was held the next day at Center Hill Church, an old wooden structure which Noonan's father-in-law Albert Curtis helped build. Daddy was laid to rest in the Center Hill graveyard. He was just 55 years of age.

**
1910 United States Federal Census:
Name: William N Gober
Age in 1910: 4
Birth Year: abt 1906
Birthplace: Mississippi
Home in 1910: Burnsville, Tishomingo, Mississippi
Race: White
Gender: Male
Relation to Head of House: Son
Marital Status: Single
Father's Name: James H Gobey
Father's Birthplace: Alabama
Mother's Name: Mary E Gober
Mother's Birthplace: Mississippi
Household Members:
Name Age
James H Gober 31
Mary E Gober 23
William N Gober 4
Franklin H Gober 2

1940 United States Federal Census:
Name: William N Gober
Respondent: Yes
Age: 34
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1906
Gender: Male
Race: White
Birthplace: Mississippi
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Head
Home in 1940: Alcorn, Mississippi
Farm: Yes
Inferred Residence in 1935: Tennessee, Hardin, Tennessee
Residence in 1935: Tennessee, Hardin, Tennessee
Resident on farm in 1935: Yes
Sheet Number: 5A
Number of Household in Order of Visitation: 71
Occupation: Farmer
House Owned or Rented: Rented
Value of Home or Monthly Rental if Rented: 10
Attended School or College: No
Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 8th grade
Hours Worked Week Prior to Census: 32
Class of Worker: Working on own account
Weeks Worked in 1939: 52
Income: 0
Income Other Sources: No
Household Members:
Name Age
William N Gober 34
Raney Bell Gober 27
W T Gober 11
Bobbie Joe Gober 8
Cora [Clara] Bell Gober 5